Fall Arts & Entertainment- Art

By Jim Duncan

8/21/2013

El Anatsui’s “Gravity and Grace,” 2010, made of aluminum and copper wire, 145 5/8-by-441 inches, is on display at the Akron Art Museum, courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery in New York. Photo by Andrew McAllister. Courtesy of the Akron Art Museum

For Iowa’s art scene, autumn is the sobering, back-to-work season that follows carefree summers of big festivals and light entertainments. This year’s fall calendar supports such sobriety with a preponderance of big shows. The Des Moines Art Center will follow up its monumental installation of English artist Phylidda Barlow with another monumental installation by Ghanaian El Anatsui. The gallery scene includes the return of two of Iowa’s heaviest, big subject painters Larassa Kabel and Mark Kline Misol, both at Moberg, plus new gravity-defying visions of Michael Brangoccio at Olson-Larsen.

For levity, fall also brings annual celebrations and fall studio tours with one of arty Winneshiek County highlighting that genre. The world’s largest quilt show returns to the Iowa Events Center, and the Octagon Center celebrates its 43rd annual Arts Festival.

CALENDAR

Recurring Events and Family Attractions

Thursday Night Art Walks in downtown Newton

First Friday Art Walks, Fairfield Town Square and East Village of Des Moines

Oct. 2-5 — “American Quilt Society’s Quilt Week.” The biggest quilt show in the nation returns to Des Moines. Taking over the Iowa Events Center, the event will feature more than 1,000 quilts, a Merchant Mall, the newest quilt-making supplies and other quilt-related gifts. Learn all about it at http://aqsshows.com/AQSDesMoines/show-info/2011-quilt-show. Admission at the door is $11.

2AU, 200 Fifth St., West Des Moines: Beach boys of Ipanema and mermaids of Tahiti mix it up with Tanzanian gems this summer.

Des Moines Social Club, 400 Walnut St., 288-3672, http://desmoinessocialclub.org: Circus, wrestling, tai chi, akido, theater, belly dancing and other acts of sociability make the club the most eclectic venue in town.

Sept. 6-Oct. 19 — “Larassa Kabel.” Des Moines’ super realist painter exhibits her own work and acts as curator for a show of her favorite works by other gallery artists.

Oct. 25-Nov. 30 — “Mary Kline Misol.” The inimitable Kline-Misol returns with her latest meditations on historical subjects, literary genius and the darkness of the woods.

Dec. 6-Jan. 30 — “New Works by Bill Luchsinger and Karen Strohbeen.” Creating their first prints in 1970, Luchsinger and Strohbeen were digital print-making pioneers, even before David Hockney made that cool. The exhibit will showcase new work on paper, canvas, ceramic tile, and who knows what else?

Through Nov. 1 — “Vicious Circles.” Meditations of roundness by Antony Gormley, Tara Donavan, John Simon, Ross Bleckner, Dzine, James Siena, Deborah Kass, Terry Winters, John Armleder, Carlos Cruz-Diez, Sam Gilliam, John Tremblay and Judy Pfaff. This show was highly praised by national and international media.

Late November-2014 — “Bernar Venet: large scale etchings.” French conceptualism.

MUSEUMS

Through Sept. 22 — “Phyllida Barlow: Scree.” Bigger-than-life installation by this great English artist. Barlow also acted as curator for a show of her favorite pieces from the Art Center’s collection.

Sept. 15-Jan. 5 — “Wild Kingdom: Prints of Britain.” This show compares and contrasts 300 years of British artists’ rapturous visions of the natural world with dark and pessimistic visions of human nature.

Through Sept. 15 — “Bertha Jaques: Eye on the World.” Pioneering printmaker succeeded in a field dominated by male artists and also helped promote etching in America as a writer, teacher and co-founder of the Chicago Society of Etchers.

Through Sept. 29 — “From Houdini to Hugo; Art of Brian Selznick.” Works of a famous child illustrator.